Frankenstein

I had never read this, and I was surprised by a number of things: that we get a detailed account of the monster's learning process (which had me thinking of LLMs), that the Monster is smarter and more rhetorically savvy than Victor, and that the Monster's rhetorical skill is highlighted by Shelley (we hear of the monster's "sophistry" which then had me wondering: Is this where @sophist_monster comes from?

One last thought...this book is tale of what happens when science rejects aesthetics in the name of pure efficiency and function. If Victor had cared at all about what the monster looked like, then the entire story unfolds quite differently. The monster's hideous "countenance" (Shelley's favorite word by far, btw) is why he can't have a connection with person, regardless of how much he craves that connection.

I wasn't expecting to like this book anywhere near as much as I ended up doing! The story as told in the book is much more interesting than the limited image of it that's got in to popular culture, and this was my first encounter with the whole thing. It's so much more about deeply flawed Victor Frankenstein (TLDR: our reading group kept using the term "main character syndrome") than about the mad science process. And while the creature is far from likeable, his portrayal has genuine pathos, even though most of what we hear about him is secondhand through the recounting of someone who hates him.

There are several impressively strong resonances to the modern world, between the general lack of ethics in tech and the current wave of "AI" hype. And of course big self-centred men who think that extreme success in one sphere gives them licence to behave as badly as they like in others.

last time i read frankenstein was probably 20 years ago. rereading it now, i still love it. this heavily-annotated edition is great for a reread, but i wouldn't recommend it for a first-time reading (too distracting, and too spoilery). i learned a lot more about mary shelley and the context in which the book was written.

also of possible interest is that this edition is based on the original 1818 version of frankenstein. the annotations make note of where the more-widely-read 1831 edition differs significantly.

i have to admit that one of the reasons i like this book so much is that both frankenstein and his creature are so tortured and angsty about the act of creation and about one's own monstrous nature... etc etc. i dig it.

So bad it's good. It kept me amused all the way through with its ridiculousness. So emo! Someone read their Rousseau!
LOL at "uninhabited" South America. <3 the Arctic pursuit.